A hike around the Moon
Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2022 1:19 pm
Session: 13th Jan
Scope: 12"Dob
So, we've recently had over the previous few nights amazing seeing. I could tell late evening as the sun went down the stability of the air made for exceptional visibility over the valley seeing sharp details of objects in the distance. The moon which was already well up was rock solid and easy to pull out a lot of features naked eye...
Jupiter - At 5pm before Jupiter made its way below the roof of a nearby (unoccupied) house, I quickly collimated dead on with the cheshire. With the 10mm Delos giving 150x the planet was incredibly sharp, the middle bands showing an intense brown / orange tint - the brightness though making it difficult to see much further detail so I put in the 7mm Pentax XW for 214x which while I lost some of the colour of the main large middle bands allow seeing detail in the rest of the planet. The bands themselves showed some good detail with the swirls and eddies showing with some persistance. My wife joined me with my eldest daughter and they were quite blown away with the view! Unfortunately, the planet didn't take long to disappear below the rooftop... That reminds me to raise thedob a touch on a mat or two for tonight...
I decided to do a session of moon observation of which i'm a complete noob!
Therefore I spent a bit of time on google and found a good page listing 12 targets:
https://astronomy.com/news/observing/20 ... ar-targets
I popped these targets in to Sky Safari and added a couple of others for good measure... prepared, it was time to start around 9pm.
For this part I started with the Pentax XW 5mm but quickly switched to a 4mm TMB Optical Planetary II giving 300x
Clavius - Not too far away from the terminator this was showing really clearly. Craterlets J,N,Y,C,D,T,X and K all very clear. I enjoyed the "route" walking down from this towards Tycho via Maginus.
Plato - Perhaps not the best (too much illumination?) for attempting to see the small craterlets however I could just about make out some pock-marks in the extremely flat featureless crater.
Archimedes - Nice visual on this spotting a couple of the craterlets. The nearby Montes Spitzbergen highlighted especially well.
Thor's hammer - Not the offical name (as it doesn't see to have one). However it a feature just to the south (normal way up) of Mons Piton that looks unmistakenly like a mallet. Not too difficult to see but it rather an impression on the surface that needs the sharpness and reasonable power to make out the shape well.
Back down to Plato it's a short stroll to...
Sinus Iridum (Bay of Rainbows) - OK, this feature blew me away. I think it may have been ideally situated(?) with the close terminator - following the length of the bay a great amount of features embedded into it particularly from Bianchini crater to Laplace D. One of the most awesome features of this bay was Promontorium Laplace - on the bay side of this cape starts looks to be a meandering valley which is of reasonable length. To the west of this (dob view) some "footprints" left in the otherwise flawless bay.
Copernicus - Obviously two central craterlets and ridges on the edge of the main crater. Montes Carpatus nicely detailed below this (dob view). As I strolled then towards the terminator from Copernicus I was intrigued by Montes Riphaeus which stood out beautifully illuminated although it does not appear to be a particularly prominent mountain range.
Rimae Gassendi - This one was spectacular - the closeness to the terminator really highlighted the depth of this feature and the central mountains inside the crater which there seemded to be 4 individual mountains although clumped together - The 3D effect was really quite outstanding.
Rimae Hadley - One of my extras as it was the site of the Apollo 15 landing site and I was particularly after seeing the "stream" that runs through that area. I'd got the area in view however the clarity was disappearing fast... I looked to see where the problem was and sure enough my secondary mirror had succumbed to dew. In fact, the air was so damp that everything was soaked with water. This feature will have to wait until next time!
I wrapped up at 11pm and warmed up inside while pondering to take out a refractor but it was also starting the freeze and I was getting tired (3 nights in a row!)
Scope: 12"
So, we've recently had over the previous few nights amazing seeing. I could tell late evening as the sun went down the stability of the air made for exceptional visibility over the valley seeing sharp details of objects in the distance. The moon which was already well up was rock solid and easy to pull out a lot of features naked eye...
Jupiter - At 5pm before Jupiter made its way below the roof of a nearby (unoccupied) house, I quickly collimated dead on with the cheshire. With the 10mm Delos giving 150x the planet was incredibly sharp, the middle bands showing an intense brown / orange tint - the brightness though making it difficult to see much further detail so I put in the 7mm Pentax XW for 214x which while I lost some of the colour of the main large middle bands allow seeing detail in the rest of the planet. The bands themselves showed some good detail with the swirls and eddies showing with some persistance. My wife joined me with my eldest daughter and they were quite blown away with the view! Unfortunately, the planet didn't take long to disappear below the rooftop... That reminds me to raise the
I decided to do a session of moon observation of which i'm a complete noob!
Therefore I spent a bit of time on google and found a good page listing 12 targets:https://astronomy.com/news/observing/20 ... ar-targets
I popped these targets in to Sky Safari and added a couple of others for good measure... prepared, it was time to start around 9pm.
For this part I started with the Pentax XW 5mm but quickly switched to a 4mm TMB Optical Planetary II giving 300x
Clavius - Not too far away from the terminator this was showing really clearly. Craterlets J,N,Y,C,D,T,X and K all very clear. I enjoyed the "route" walking down from this towards Tycho via Maginus.
Plato - Perhaps not the best (too much illumination?) for attempting to see the small craterlets however I could just about make out some pock-marks in the extremely flat featureless crater.
Archimedes - Nice visual on this spotting a couple of the craterlets. The nearby Montes Spitzbergen highlighted especially well.
Thor's hammer - Not the offical name (as it doesn't see to have one). However it a feature just to the south (normal way up) of Mons Piton that looks unmistakenly like a mallet. Not too difficult to see but it rather an impression on the surface that needs the sharpness and reasonable power to make out the shape well.
Back down to Plato it's a short stroll to...
Sinus Iridum (Bay of Rainbows) - OK, this feature blew me away. I think it may have been ideally situated(?) with the close terminator - following the length of the bay a great amount of features embedded into it particularly from Bianchini crater to Laplace D. One of the most awesome features of this bay was Promontorium Laplace - on the bay side of this cape starts looks to be a meandering valley which is of reasonable length. To the west of this (
Copernicus - Obviously two central craterlets and ridges on the edge of the main crater. Montes Carpatus nicely detailed below this (
Rimae Gassendi - This one was spectacular - the closeness to the terminator really highlighted the depth of this feature and the central mountains inside the crater which there seemded to be 4 individual mountains although clumped together - The 3D effect was really quite outstanding.
Rimae Hadley - One of my extras as it was the site of the Apollo 15 landing site and I was particularly after seeing the "stream" that runs through that area. I'd got the area in view however the clarity was disappearing fast... I looked to see where the problem was and sure enough my secondary mirror had succumbed to dew. In fact, the air was so damp that everything was soaked with water. This feature will have to wait until next time!
I wrapped up at 11pm and warmed up inside while pondering to take out a refractor but it was also starting the freeze and I was getting tired (3 nights in a row!)
